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ROBERT CHARLES McMASTER
1913-1986
BY ROBERT I. JAFFEE
ROBERT CHARLES MCMASTER one of the pioneers of non-
clestructive testing, died of cardiac shock at his home in Dela-
ware, Ohio, on July 6, 1986. Dr. McMaster, who was seventy-
three when he cried, was Regents Professor Emeritus of
Welcting Engineering and Electrical Engineering at Ohio
State University (OSU).
He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in
1970. He retired from OSU in 1977 and spent the last nine
years of his life in a typically proactive, Bob McMaster style:
involves! in countless projects, including continued consult-
ing, editing the seconc! edition of his monumental Non-
destructive Testing Handbook, and attending to his family to
whom he was clevoted.
McMaster received a B.S. in 1936 in electrical engineering
from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylva-
nia; an M.S. in 1938 in electrical engineering from California
Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California;
and a Ph.D., magna cum laude, in electrical engineering and
physics in 1944, also from Caltech. At Caltech, McMaster su-
pervised welding and X-ray radiography, his first encounter
with the field of nondestructive testing (NDT). His Ph.D. re-
search involved the effects of light on power transmission
lines. His teachers included Nobel Laureates Car! D. Ander-
son, Robert A. Millikan, and Enrico Fermi.
267
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268
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
Bob McMaster's first job after finishing his Ph.D. was with
Battelle Memorial Institute's Columbus Laboratories, where
he cut quite a swath as supervisor of electrical engineering
from ~ 945 to ~ 954. It was during this period that Bob
McMaster became one of the nation's first television weath-
ermen. From 1950 to 1964 he broadcast twice a day at
WBNS-TV in Columbus, providing for his watchers a virtual
education in weather forecasting that incluclecl the "why" as
well as the "what" in the local weather picture.
His Battelle days included important work on the use of
sonic and ultrasonic wave-assistec! of] well drilling and power
tools, a topic he continued at OSU. This experience culmi-
nated in the licensing of industry to produce high-power-
leve} prezoelectric transducers for metal working and hanct
tools. McMaster continued his work on NDT, applying the
xerox copying process developecl by Battelle for Haloid
Company, which later became Xerox Corporation, to radiog-
raphy in the xeroradiography units being marketed by
Xerox. Xeroradiography is now widely used in medicine for
early cancer detection.
McMaster joinect Ohio State University in 1955. He began
as a professor of welding engineering and later became Re-
gents Professor of Welding and Electrical Engineering. He
taught courses in NDT and welding to both graduate anc}
undergraduate students. Bob McMaster turned out to be a
superb teacher. His booming lecture voice and carefully
printed blackboarct will never be forgotten by his students,
to whom he was known as "Doc." His courses in welcling anti
NDT principles and analysis were also perhaps the best En-
glish and mathematics courses his students ever had. A re-
port with grammatical errors would be returned with a suit-
ably pithy comment scrawled in the margin for correction
before it would be accepted.
Of McMaster's more than three hun(lre(1 publications and
nineteen patents, perhaps the most significant to his fielct
and to society as a whole is the Nondestructive Testing Handbook
that he edited for the American Society for Nondestructive
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ROBERT CHARLES MCMASTER
269
Testing. The two-volume first edition appeared in 1959;
McMaster finished the second edition in 1986, before his un-
timely death. His achievement in compiling, and often re-
writing, the contributions to this work is staggering.
The manuscript of the first edition totaled 2,700 typed
pages, contained 1,250 illustrations, and stood twenty-six
inches high when stacked. The award-winning publication
was so comprehensive, far reaching, and definitive that it is
still widely used twenty-seven years after its publication and
has been translates! into many languages including French,
Spanish, Russian, and Chinese.
McMaster receiver! many honors during his lifetime. He
was a life member of the American Society for Nondestruc-
tive Testing (ASNT), the American Society for Testing Ma-
terials (ASTM), the American Welding Society, the American
Society for Metals, and the Institute of Electrical and Elec-
tronics Engineers; he was also a member of the American
Society for Engineering Education and Sigma Xi. He pre-
sentect the ASNT Meh! Lecture in 1950 and the ASTM Ed-
gar Marburg Lecture on nondestructive testing in 1952. For
the American Welcting Society, McMaster presented the Eclu-
cational Lecture in 1962 and the Adams Honor Lecture in
1965.
In 1970 he was appointed national lecturer of the Midwest
region of Sigma Xi. He received the National Reliability
Award (1966), the Carnegie Mellon Merit Award (1971), the
Ohioana Citation for distinguished service in engineering
and research ~ ~ 97 ~ ), the American Weakling Society Charles
H. Jennings Memorial Awarc! (1975), and the OSU Merito-
rious Service Citation (19801.
From his primary society, the American Society of Nondes-
tructive Testing, McMaster received many honors and
awards. He was ASNT president from 1952 to 1953 and re-
ceived the ASNT Fellow Award (1973), the Coolidge Honor
Award (1957), the DeForest Award (1959), the Tutorial Ci-
tation (1973), and the Gold Medal (19771. He was awarder]
honorary membership in 1960.
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270
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
McMaster's work on NDT was of great timeliness because
it coincidec! with the development of fracture mechanics
cluring the early 1950s, a period marked by catastrophic fail-
ures of turbine ant! generator rotors and rocket motor cas-
ings. The juxtaposition of the development of NDT anti
fracture mechanics appears to be more than coincidental.
Prior to an understanding of fracture mechanics and the
development of finite element stress analysis, NDT was used
primarily for radiographic inspection. Fracture mechanics
required accurate knowlecige of flaw size and location rela-
tive to the static dynamic stresses that are appliecl to large,
critical components. McMaster's work on advanced NDT
techniques, including ultrasonic and ect~y-current methods,
was vital to the new fracture mechanics technology that was
creates! cluring the 1950s to analyze failures and predict the
life of components.
McMaster hac] a sophisticated view of NDT in the total
context of science ant! engineering and of the importance of
NDT to society. His later publications dealt more and more
with management responsibilities and ethical philosophy in
the application of NDT. He saw NDT as a broacl family of
technologies that extenclecl human powers of perception be-
yonc! the inspection of industrial materials to many fields,
including noninvasive medical diagnostics, geophysical sens-
ing, meteorological environmental monitoring, ant] raclio-
metric probing of space. His humane vision of the NDT
profession is one of his many legacies.
McMaster is survives! by his wife, Laura Gerould Mc-
Master; his sons, L. Roy McMaster and lames A. McMaster;
his daughter, :Lois McMaster BujoIct; his sister, Mrs. Max T.
Rogers; and seven grandchildren. Roy is an investment
counselor, Jim works in chemical plant research and clevel-
opment, and Lois writes books on science fiction. Laura
McMaster recently closecl the house on the left bank of the
Scioto River, where they lived happily for seventeen years.
Bob and Laura McMaster were members of the I.iberty Pres-
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ROBERT CHARLES MCMASTER
271
byterian Church in Delaware, Ohio, the churchyard in which
he was buried on July 9, 1986.
Bob McMaster leaves behind! a living legacy of hundreds
of people with whom he came in contact, students and
professional colleagues, to continue his work in nondestruc-
· ~
tree testing.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
electrical engineering
